1. But when someone, allured by the persuasion and beauty of virtue, has withdrawn a little from his former manner of life, immediately another temptation meets him, against which he must struggle. For him whom carnal pleasure, once overcome, has released, the vanity of the world will seize: as those are an example to us who forbid themselves the delight of sown lust, yet permit to their pleasure (or rather, their will) the license of windy vanity. They contradict the baseness of intercourse, and succumb to ambition;
they use exquisite delicacies and clothing for luxury, long-haired boys and powerful horses for pomp, hawks and fattened dogs for hunting, frequent hunts for extravagance, and they falsely claim that the ostentation of ambitious display is a necessary adornment. 2. They reckon it to be no matter of greed but of some I-know-not-what utility: to laugh profusely, to raise the voice in impudent guffaws, to listen gladly to base jests, to make the pain of others their own merriment by mocking, to fill the elegant—however base—with delights, to cast off the serious who lack necessities, to build very large and ornate houses, to increase their own resources unceasingly, to gape after seizing what belongs to others, if opportunity allows:
so that they not only gladly practice the things I have mentioned, or many others like them, but even mock those who reprove them for this, believing that those are acting foolishly who brand with the crime of ambition things lawful and customary among nobles. But he who, divinely helped, has overcome this evil also, and—propped up by the strength of spiritual continence—has trampled down all things by which he can be retarded from perfection; he inclines his mind to holy virtue with the zeal of a good will: then he observes, delightfully and devoutly, all the nods of the queenly virtue reigning within him: and thus, having become one spirit with his God, he never does or thinks anything else except that whereby he may become brighter and more noble, and may conquer the gratifications of all vices with pure delights.